British Airways Holds More Talks With Unite Over Check in Staff

As many people have already heard, British Airways has been holding many meetings with members of Untie union. Just last week, British Airways held talks with Unite about cabin crew. These talks ended with Unite union giving their members a ballot for strike. Now British Airways finds itself in more talks with Unite, but this time they are holding talks over the check in and customer service staff members.

Officials from both the Unite and GMB unions will now be meeting with management from British Airways to discuss the planned job losses and cost cutting for the check in staff. Negotiations with check in staff ended without an agreement in the summer. The talks that have just recently taken place aim to get these talks back on track.

Unite union says that British Airways will be cutting around 10 percent of its so called “A-scales staff,” This amounts to about 1,000 jobs overall. The chief executive of British Airways, Willie Walsh, will lead the meetings. Willie Walsh has already said that the airline is in a fight for survival, and these cuts will have to be made in order to save the airline.

The National officer of Unite union, Steve Turner, said that there are fears that British Airways’ airport staff would be outsourced. There are also fears of a roster changes and a new low rate of pay introduced to the new employees. Steven Turner went on to say that British Airways is looking to cut 1,250 jobs among this section of the workforce. This does include about 800 people form Heathrow alone.